Death Himself Witnesses Against Me
by BakaMondai
Summary: The end of the world. It's funny that no one expected it to come so soon. From hatred and bigotry as old as civilization itself. And after everything is over and all is said and done, The Boy Who Lived wakes up once again staring at the dead body of Lily Potter. This is on my account on A03 and generally gets updated there first. Also this is Tom/Harry.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

 **AN:** Well, this is eventually going to be a TomXHarry fic. This is because I ship it and I will not change my mind if your not into that, you can stop reading the fic right here. Oh and before I forget, (and I will forget), here are your disclaimers.

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter. It is the sole property of Warner Brothers, J.K. Rowling, ect. and they possess all of the characters you recognize from the novels. Any OC's I decide to include, for whatever unfathomable reason, are mine.

 **Rating:** Mature for possible scenes of masturabation, pedophilia, murder, torture scenes, cursing, sex with minors, semi-consensual sex, non-consensual sex. Sorry if any of this offends your sensibilities, but if so please click off this fanfiction now. Wow, that was quite a list.

 **Recommendations:** If you really like this fanfiction, I would recommend Xerosis by Batsutousai and Again and Again by Athey. They are two of my favorite fanfiction and served as an inspiration for this one.

Chapter Word Total: 5256

"Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are." - Niccolo Machiavelli

Green eyes opened peering heavily at the shambled room around him. Though he had motor control and he seemed able to pivot his arms and legs around to stand, he was still trapped in the crib with his mother's corpse lying silently staring at nothing beside him. Ashes and broken wood and fragments of what had been his baby room laid scattered, the empty robes on the floor making light of the situation.

His head ached, and he felt fevered and ill but oddly excited and yet detached from where he was, as if he wasn't actually experiencing this series of events _again_. He did not want to think of the war or death or Voldemort or Dumbledore. He had not wanted to think about anything, but he was back here. Why was he a child again staring at his mother's corpse waiting for someone to take him from this place? Why was he peering into this wrecked cottage again?

A loud slamming sound echoed from downstairs and Harry fell to his butt quietly in surprise, his chubby hands losing their grip on the crib bars, landing on a particularly soft blanket covered in snitches and broomsticks. It was hard still to move his limbs, but he seemed capable of some fine movements and his legs at least appeared sturdy enough when he braced against the crib bars. At least he wasn't completely helpless. He ran his hand over the soft comfort holding it like a shield against the quiet devastation that surrounded him.

' _It must be...Severus first, I believe. Then it must have been Sirius, then Hagrid._ ' Harry remembered, as the loud banging continued reminiscent of someone thundering up the staircase to his nursery. ' _So this must be Severus_.'

And then a young, strikingly young, Severus Snape appeared breathing hard after searching every room but the one Harry had slept in. And then Harry felt disgusted with himself for watching the man break down as the man fell to his knees and sobbed for Lily Potter. Severus did nothing by halves though, as he must have sat there mourning over Harry's mother for twenty minutes before managing to gain any kind of semblance of control.

Harry quickly weighed the possibilities of this situation, wondering if Severus would be a better caregiver than the Dursley's and nearly reflexively snorted in disbelief. Almost anything with a pulse would have been better than the Dursley's at caregiving, and though the man was caustic and weathered he most certainly had a pulse.

Making up his mind, Harry considered how he could get the man to remove him from the rubble before deciding simply making the man aware of his presence would be a significant step in the right direction.

"Mommy?" Harry whispered startling the grieving man out of his mourning.

"Potter," Severus snarled angry at being disturbed and then turned to actually notice the boy in the crib, the boy's face absolutely drenched in blood and a deep gouge in his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. The man visibly paled.

"The dark lord…." Snape trailed off almost as if he was looking for answers to the unasked question from the toddler in front of him.

"Bye-bye," Harry said, grimacing internally at the difficulty of the words, pointing to the discarded clothing on the floor boards, "Whoosh, whoosh. Bye-bye."

A look of almost absolute confusion appeared on the man's face after he stared at the empty ashes of the Dark Lord. Severus then stood firmly before walking towards the young boy. He plucked the boy from the crib holding him at eye level before the sullen man's face seemed to collapse in on itself. For a moment, a single solitary moment Harry allowed himself to believe that Snape was going to carry him out of the broken shambles of his home, that this time Snape was going to be _different._ Then the man's eye's hardened, darkening noticeably, and the man sighed deeply, audibly.

And then the man sat him back down gently in the crib, and turned, resolutely walking away from Harry and Lily. Harry alone watched all of this, his green eyes hard as stone, anger pooling in his stomach. It seemed that no matter what Harry did or didn't do, the blame for someone else's actions would come to rest on his shoulders.

It would be another two hours before Sirius came for him.

Ms. Dursley was possibly the most shocked woman in all of Surrey, finding a toddler on her doorstep that early November morning. _It,_ because it couldn't be anything else but an _it,_ had been left there like an unwanted, unneeded gift with that blasted letter. It wasn't as if the letter had told her much, outside of the fact that those nasty freakish people her sister always spent all her time with had finally gotten her and her worthless husband blown up. The only part that concerned her was the fact that this _letter,_ if it could even be called that written as it was on parchment paper as was, demanded that she take the brat of a boy in. It claimed that she and her husband were the last living blood relatives of the boy, which she believed. The freaks had a nasty habit of getting people killed.

'Well,' Petunia thought indignantly, 'I will not stand for this! But first, I must make sure that the neighbors haven't seen him.'

And so she peered her beady eyes out the door of number four Privet Drive, and craned her enormously long neck out the door to scan for any early-rising no-good gossiping women who might have spotted the child, although it was unlikely. After all, she alway took the garbage out early in the morning before all the other residents had risen. It wasn't like she wanted to be seen doing something so common in front of the other women.

After assuring herself that the boy hadn't been seen by any of the neighbors, she stooped low and grabbed him, holding _it_ extended from her body before quickly ducking back inside the house, the garbage bag dropped as she stared down at the creature in her arms. He looked so normal, still sleeping in her arms, just as Dudley would. But if Lily had shown Petunia one thing, it was that these people were not normal. They could look normal and sound normal and do normal things, but if you dug deeply enough you would find the rotten festering freakishness inside them.

Steeling herself, Petunia placed it on the couch, and went to skim the letter once more before she screwed up the letter and nearly burst into tears. It seemed as if Lily always got everything she wanted. She had always gotten the best dresses, the finest presents, the handsome suitors. Lilly had gotten the magic and the brains, the beauty and the talent, and by God Petunia couldn't see how it was fair that her sister got to take any pieces of Petunia's perfectly normal life and smash it smithereens. But the letter said not to send the boy away, that it was important for her family's safety that they take the nasty freak into their normal home. Petunia still remembered the disaster when her own parents had refused such an offer of protection.

There were just too many things for her to consider by herself with the still sleeping baby-, no thing, - never a child, never a child right beside her.

She quickly straightened herself up, and glanced at the clock on the mantle place beside the numerous photos of Dudley. It was only a quarter past six, and she generally would never wake Vernon up this early, but she knew that she couldn't make this decision alone. She needed her husband's input.

"Absolutely not! Petunia, we agreed that there would never be any of this _funny business_. Your sister and her idiotic, unemployed husband may have managed to get themselves blown up, but I will not be cleaning up after them! You know what happens when _those people_ mix with us normal folk!" Vernon bolstered loudly, his face a darkened blotchy purple and red. "People end up dead! That's what happens to us Petunia! I will not have Dudley exposed to such things! Think of your parents, Petunia!Think of what the freaks did to them."

Petunia had only just finished explaining what had happened that morning to her over excited husband and she sighed again. It felt like this was the thirtieth time this morning she had sighed like that and Vernon's yelling wasn't doing much for her headache, so she simply passed him the letter that had been left on the step with the Potter child.

"What's this rubbish?" Vernon asked gruffly, as he had finally stopped bellowing when he noticed his wife rubbing circles into her temples.

"It's the letter they sent with the boy when they dumped him on our read it, Vernon. I'm going to go ahead and make breakfast. I hadn't started yet because of the interruptions this morning." She said nodding to Harry who laid, still asleep in a cardboard box on the cabinet.

The next few minutes were filled only with silence, the quiet popping of grease, and Vernon's mumbling as he read and reread the offending document before him. By the end of it Vernon had mangled the letter so badly that it was barely legible anymore, and a blood vessel was protruding quite noticeably from his forehead as he worked himself up into being angrier and angrier than he originally was, until he was literally spitting out phrases like,"...Required to maintain and care for nephew… age of wizarding majority… seventeen. Hogwarts School For Witches and Wizards!" and, "Warding around my home… danger from terrorist groups…"

It was only the clattering of Petunia setting the table and minutes later the sudden shrieking of his own son waking up that shook him from his angry musing to notice that the Potter brat, who he had honestly assumed to be asleep for the entire duration of his and Petunia's conversation was now staring at him as he sat in the cardboard box, the boy's eyes an eerie, hard set shade of green. Feeling a sudden shiver go down his neck, Vernon got up and made his way onto his dining chair.

"We don't have that much of a choice, Vernon," Petunia advised quietly as she spoon fed Dudley the mashed banana and monitored the way he attempted to hold his cup up. "They always get what they want, and if they want to have him stay in this house, we can accommodate that. I can clear out that cupboard underneath the stair and he will be plenty far enough away from our Dinky Duddydums so he won't contaminate him with his freakishness. All we would have to do is put locks on the door so he can't get out unless we let him. And just imagine, in a couple of years we can put him to work cleaning and cooking, after all, he would have to earn his keep."

"What about this warding? What does it do? Wouldn't they be able to tell if we do anything to the boy?" Vernon wondered aloud.

Petunia snorted lightly, "If anything that's the only reason why I'm willing to accept him. It's supposedly a type of protection that they can place on the house to keep us safe. My mother and Father declined this same type of protection right before they died, although there's most certainly did not come with a freak attached."

Her face pinched tightly and she ran a bony hand through her blonde hair, " Although I loathe to admit it Vernon, the freak shouldn't be as much trouble to keep as it would be to get rid of him. Those people know things, and since they've dumped him on us we will just have to make the best of it."

Vernon Dursley would be the first person to renounce his nephew, even before Petunia. After all Dursley's were well mannered, well bred, stocky men and women who most certainly did not involve themselves with fantasy and definitely not anything _abnormal._ And Vernon Dursley's nephew Harry Potter most certainly was _abnormal._

From the very moment Harry Potter had set foot in Privet Drive Number four, there had been something slightly… peculiar about the boy. For one, though Petunia probably should have noticed it first, Vernon noticed by the time the boy was five years old he had never smiled. Even as a baby, the Potter child had simply stared at nothing, his eyes burning the air like molten lava. Another, perhaps the more peculiar thing was that the boy never spoke. The Dursley's were perhaps more content with the fact that the boy never spoke than they were concerned. As far as they cared, it was perfectly normal behavior for a freak.

But five years old was when Vernon started noticing the boy. Started noticing the darkness to his eyes, the smirk that graced his upturned mouth, the lips that never smiled. He noticed the litheness of the boy, how tiny he was compared to his own girth, bloody hell compared to his own son's girth. He noticed the small hands and the demure stature.

The first time he thought about the boy as he stroked his own length, he convinced himself it was an accident. The second time he was positive it was just a mistake, but by the fourth or fifth time he began to slowly try to rationalize his thoughts.

He knew that wanking to the most vulgar thoughts of the boy was probably wrong, even if the boy was a freak, but Vernon had never been one for self-restraint, and so his mind wandered to all the filthy things he could make the boy do. Things that normal people like Petunia would never do. Things he would never think of asking Petunia to do.

After all, it wasn't like the boy was normal. It wasn't like he was human. He was just a freak. Vernon could do whatever he wanted after all, he took care of the brat didn't he? Fed him. Clothed him. Gave him room and board. Petunia's words from four years ago haunted his sleep every night. After all, the boy owed him, owed them for everything.

Didn't he?

 _His graying hair was hanging down in his face and he had the most terrible stitch in his side. is entire body pulsed with pain and anguish but still he ran on. The only alternative was death. Painful, encompassing, complete death. The muggles catcalled after him, braying loudly. Suddenly, an explosive noise erupted and Harry fell to his face, gasping in pain his hands instinctively fumbling for the bullet wound. He began chanting quickly, his magic surging to close the hole faster, but he already knew it was too late._

 _Just as the skin and sinew knitted together enough for him to raise himself up from the cold hard ground, the team of Hunters emerged into the clearing. Muggles. Hunters. Whatever one called them they both meant the same thing for magicals. Death._

 _Harry Potter was screaming and begging for several hours before he died._

Harry bolted awake in his cot under the stairs. He nearly slammed his head into the ceiling and he felt the tears running down his face in rivulets. Harry kept forgetting than he was only five, every night felt like he was back surviving by the skin of his teeth, running blindly from death. It felt like a dream being here with his filthy muggle relatives, playing family. He still felt like he would wake up there, starving and dying and alone.

He rested his head firmly against the wall nearest to his cot, shivering as the sweat against his body reckoned that nightmare's had always been with him haunting him, even when reality had decided that he had had enough. They had been there entirely though his first life, through his early years with the Dursley's, into Hogwarts, and passed that into his professional and romantic life. They were a constant when he had been on the run with Ron and Hermione and present throughout his rocky marriage to Ginny.

Sometimes, Harry was simply certain that he had gone insane. How else would he have ended up back where he obviously didn't belong. Perhaps it was that Harry was simply being too much of a Potter at breaking the rules. He snorted. Now he was being ridiculous.

He rolled over and closed his eyes, resolute in once again finding sleep.

"Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception."

― Niccolò Machiavelli,

Harry Potter knew good and well what Vernon Dursley was up to in the dead of night in the days following his fifth birthday. He was the one doing the sheets and the laundry making the breakfast and doing most of the menial chores around the house after all. He wanted to fit in for as long as possible, and the easiest way to do such a thing was remain with the Dursley's until he turned eleven. Still, the family put him on edge much more than it had in his first life. That was most certainly due to the fact that he either hadn't noticed his perverted Uncle during his first life, or something had changed the man enough to make him think that being attracted to a young child was an acceptable thing to do.

Whatever the man's reason, Harry was left dealing with the indirect results of Vernon's making. Petunia was absolutely enraged. Whether it was Harry's fault or not, she had seen the signs as well as he had, but as the man hadn't actually done anything…

Harry knew very well as he stared into the frying bacon that divorce between his aunt and uncle would never happen. Even if the man had taken Harry in his first life, Petunia wouldn't have left the man. They were just so obsessed with everything dull, with everything boring and ordinary.

It was then that Petunia finally strode into the kitchen, sniffing daintily at the smell of eggs and bacon and toast that filled the entire room. She tossed a vindictive,"You better not burn it, freak." his way before making her way out of the kitchen and back up stairs to wake her husband and son.

Harry rolled his eyes, his opinion of muggles had severely deteriorated in the last sixty years. In his opinion his aunt and uncle were definitely prime examples of muggle trash. Not that he hated all of the muggles. Not really, it was probably more of a controlled wariness, fear and of course select hatred for the scum of the earth. But Harry supposed that hating scum was a relatively normal occupation of anyone's time.

Dumping the mountains of eggs and bacon onto the large platters sitting at the dining table, Harry quickly sat the table for three as he heard his aunt, uncle and cousin trundling down the staircase. While eating after the Dursley's did pose obvious disadvantages to the amount of food he had available, it did grant him with one wonderful reprieve: avoiding having to see the two massive whales now sitting in the kitchen eating.

And it allowed Harry to slip away to do some hunting of his own.

The first time Harry had gone hunting, he had been in his late sixties. It was one of the last raids the British Ministry had been able to put together with the dwindling amounts of witches and wizards they were able to contact. Simply put, while the raids had initially been implemented in 2020, they had mutated by the early forties. While the original raids had taken into account the massive increases in muggle populations and had attempted to protect the individual, by the forties that mentality had been discarded for a much colder approach. The twenties targeted only those who ran their mouth and hospitals; the forties slaughtered muggles.

By the forties, almost no one had been left though. It was obvious that single groups of thirty witches and wizards stood no chances against the twelve billion humans on the earth. There were simply too many. The eradication of wizarding kind had been apparent since Harry was a child though, if he had only been looking for it. The older generations took too long to die out, and so new ideas simply took too long to come to fruition. There were too many internalized wizarding wars, too much death in the nineteen-forties, again in the nineteen-seventies, and again in the early two thousands. There was too much inbreeding and not enough attention paid to the statute of secrecy. Harry snorted. Too much would have, could have, should have for his taste. The stagnation of their world had damned them all probably before he was born.

The hunting also helped satiated that _strange_ feeling he'd come to experience since his early teen years. He hadn't named it until his sixties, until that first raid. _Rage._

Insanity destroys reason, but not wit. - Nathaniel Emmons

The first muggle Harry murdered in his new life was probably in his late thirties. Harry had met the man twice, once in his uncle's parlor as the man bargained over fine wine and pork roast, for drill prices and chatted amiably about golf. The second time was that very day, when the small boy apparated directly to the man's home.

The Dursley's wouldn't notice Harry's absence until eight, when his school called them wondering if the young boy was ill.

Harry glanced at his watch. 7:15. He grinned.

Harry let himself into the first brown brick two-story house on Cuthbert Street. He had done his research, like always, and knew that the home housed a single working man by the name of Theodore Thatcher. The man was muggle through and through, though perhaps more disgusting than most muggles in the nineteen-nineties. A peodophile, Harry had seen the obvious glances that the man had sent his way the night he had had dinner at the Dursley's, and the polite smiles he had shared with Vernon when they discussed the _boys_. Outside of that, a cursory glimpse into the man's mind had brought forward several of the man's fantasies that now nauseatingly featured Harry himself.

Harry shuddered as he opened the front door and slipped off his shoes. Setting them by the front door and conjuring a pair of surgical gloves, he took careful stock of his magical reserves. He was already feeling the small amount of magic he had cast taking a minor toll on his deaged body. He simply wasn't experienced using vast quantities of his core, although he could still feel every drop of his power from his previous life. That would have to change. Oh well. It simply meant more hunting.

Harry could hear the water running in the upstairs bathroom from the living room and he threw himself onto the leather upholstered sofa and hunkered down to wait for his victim.

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At about a quarter to eight, Mr. Thatcher ran down the staircase in almost a blind panic. He was late _again._ It must have been the third time this week. Mr. Thatcher did not do late. He was a prompt man, always had been and always would be but it seemed in the last week the world itself had decided to conspire against him. He'd broken an alarm clock, gotten stuck behind several slow commuters, and now fallen asleep in the shower. It was absurd but now once again he was in a rush to Pinkerstone hoping he could make his eight o'clock meeting.

Thatcher had no transition between running for his front door, his mind already occupied by the problems he would encounter at work today, and lying on his back in the living room with a small figure staring ominously down at him.

"Hi," said the small boy squatting beside him. "How do you feel?" The boy's hair was familiar, but confusion quickly won out over curiousity, which bled into fear as he realized he couldn't move.

"What's going on?" His voice wavered noticeably, "Who are you?"

"Shhh," The young boy moved his finger to his lips, "I'll be asking the question, Mr. Thatcher. It is suffice to say that we have met before. And might I say, Mr. Thatcher, you have made yourself quite a powerful enemy. Now, let me ask again once again. How do you feel?"

"Now look here! I am not someone to be trifled with boy-"

" _Crucio"_

Pain. He felt pain like nothing he had ever felt before, like every nerve was on fire inside his body, like his entire being was trying desperately to rip itself atom from atom. Suddenly the pain stopped, and the small figure fell slightly forward, panting in exertion.

"What was that? Thirty-seven seconds? Pathetic." The figure mumbled to himself, "But holy shit what a rush. These last few years have robbed me of so much this _pleasure._ Dealing with your _filthy_ kind will be a welcome reprieve in the coming years."

"Well, how do you feel Mr. Thatcher? We don't have long before I must really be going, after all, a school boy must go to school. Though, it will be awfully sad when the grand businessman doesn't go to work anymore." The boy chuckled darkly, his darkened green eyes meeting his own for mere seconds before he was able to make the connection.

"The boy! Dursley's nephew!" He gaped in shock. What was this boy doing in his home?

"Ah, hole in one, Mr. Thatcher. I suppose it's apt for you to recognize my eyes, since I think we have just about run out of time." The brat glared petulantly at him. "I don't see why you had to go and ruin my fun like that though, taking a full twenty minutes longer than normal this morning in the shower than normal. Tsk tsk, Mr. Thatcher. I thought you were the epitome of all that is normal and punctual and prompt. Well, at least my fat whale of an uncle still has something to aspire to. Anyway, are you ever going to answer my question?"

Abruptly, Mr. Thatcher did suddenly noticed that something was off... That his intimate area did feel rather… peculiar. Like there was a certain _numbness_. His face dawned with horror suddenly as he realized that something rather important was missing from him.

Harry began laughing at the panic dawning on the man's face almost immediately, relishing the man's pain. "Well," he said wiping the tears from his eyes,"that is absolutely delightful! I suppose I simply must allow you to actually feel the damage I've done before we finish up here."

Removing his numbing charm from the man's freshly castrated pelvis, Harry finished cutting through the bloody ooze to the remaining nerves that still held the man's penis to his body with the most beautiful carving knife he had found in the man's pantry. He made sure to do this very slowly listening to the screaming as if was a symphony.

Smiling with maniacal delight as a idea possessed him, he grabbed Thatcher's throat, holding it tightly to force the man to keep his mouth wide so Harry could shove the bloody penis down the man's throat. Setting aside the remaining bits of the once functioning genitalia, Harry grabbed the knife and laughed loudly. "I hope you fucking choke on it you filthy son of a bitch."He glanced at his watch. He only had three minutes to finish whatever he was going to do before he'd need to cast a cleaning charm and apparate to school. Whatever would Harry do?

Glancing down at what remained of Mr. Thatcher gave Harry a grand idea, and he snickered wildly as he shoved the man's balls into his eye sockets. Though he had only taken a large mass of skin from the man, most of what remained was actually spread across the living room. He'd run blood and guts halfway up the walls with magic and had actually managed to get Thatcher's stomach attached to the hanging light fixture above their heads. Other organs either lined the house or filled what remained of the man's abdominal cavity. Though the man had died, it had probably only been when Harry had sliced the man's throat open. Whatever, not like it was Harry's problem anymore. Harry shook his head and cast two more charms, one cleaning all the blood from his body and another expunging it from his clothes.

He was still three minutes late to class that morning.

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Harry was very bored of being in primary school. Actually, Harry was very bored of being in Surrey, England. He was tired of stopping himself from saying nasty spiteful things to his equally spiteful aunt, and avoiding spending any time alone with Vernon Dursley, tired of circumnavigating teachers and Dudley, and Piers and all the stupid muggle trash that existed in a very narrow space.

Harry sighed. Rationally, he knew that all muggles weren't bad. They weren't all lazy or ignorant, but so many of them were that it made him morose. Things hadn't ended well in his last life, yes, and it didn't give him the right to psychotically murder people now. Still, it made him feel better and had the perks of getting rid of some of the vermin that had contributed to his death originally. That was always a good thing in his opinion.

Harry found that perhaps one of his favorite perks of redoing his life was his new appreciation for parseltongue. His acquisition of Clementine was perhaps the most entertaining thing to happen to him in a while. Though Clementine was only a garden snake, she was surprisingly witty and had helped Harry come to terms with his strange do-over. Most important though was the fact that she was only a foot long and weighed perhaps three ounces, which meant he was able to keep her coiled around his wrist when he wore long sleeved hand me downs.

Harry had found Clementine at age four, and it had actually only been her calm reassurances that had kept him from murdering the entirety of the Dursley family and simply going to Albania in order to look for Riddle. After all, Harry was positive that this phenomenon had something to do with that man, and god damn it he was going to have answers.

While Harry had actually succeeded in defeating Voldemort in his original timeline, Harry had had his suspicions as to the efficacy of killing the man. The muggles had still murdered them all. The world had still ended. Perhaps a few people had outlived Harry, but he had seen where wizards and muggles were going. Though the wizards may have died off first, it seemed obvious that the muggles would soon follow them. After all, during the twenties, Wizarding Hunters had predominantly attacked hospitals. Advanced curses were developed that targeted the babies and mothers of anyone entering the hospital. Pregnancy became nearly nonexistent in muggles by fourties. Humanity, not the separate factions wizards and muggles had created, would likely die off in less than a hundred years.

And Harry Potter was the only one who knew.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

 _ **Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.**_ _**-**_ _**Mark Twain**_

October 31, 1985

5:55 p.m.

Albus had been concerned… no, perhaps that was an improper way of phrasing his mindset regarding the young Mr. Potter. Albus was always concerned, about things ranging from the way he weighted the complex machinations of the Wizengamot to the subtle directioning of the youth at Hogwarts. He was always engaged in several highly complex metaphorical chess games with some of the brightest and perhaps cruelest of those to ever emerge from Hogwarts. No, the young Potter boy did not concern him. He disturbed him.

Albus Dumbledore was distracted, horribly and completely distracted by the astounding puzzle the boy had presented him with, simply by existing. Originally, it had been the complexity of the boys survival, but then it had been the boy's control over his magic. It was perhaps unnatural, the way Harry's magical energy had continued to expand and contort, even from what it was at the site of Lily and James Potter's death. It reminded him of the Riddle boy before he had mutilated his magic and soul. Reminded him of that fateful first meeting...

Then there had been those reports coming in from Mrs. Figg who Dumbledore had stationed nearby the boy's residence. The level of magic Harry Potter emitted was off the charts, rating as high as a second year Hogwarts student. The boy was only five years old, for Merlin's sake! Dumbledore worried about the similarities between the two boys and pondered the effect of the Killing curse on the boy endlessly.

He stood, suddenly tired from his ponderings, and then busied himself peering at Fawkes who slept peacefully on his perch and envied the bird for it's ease. Something about Harry Potter often made it difficult for Albus to sleep soundly, even after all these years. The plumage on the beautiful phoenix made his heart ache, and Dumbledore turned around facing the window rather than his beloved familiar. He had made the right decisions concerning the Boy-Who-Lived. He knew he had-

A single earsplitting shrill pierced the air in the Headmaster's office, and Albus whirled around, before his eyes hit the glass dodecahedron screaming on his desk. He was unable to take a step forward before Fawkes startled, squawking at the noisy awakening, and took flight soaring out Albus's opened window. Abruptly, the glass figurine shattered.

Albus nearly fell to his knees in shock. The wards around Privet Drive number four had fallen.

* * *

October 31,1985

5:00 p.m

 _Filthy. Muggle. Trash._

Harry was at the end of his rope with Vernon. The man was hundreds of times worse than Harry remembered him being, almost infinitely worse than Petunia who was horrid in her own shrill way. Vernon watched him near constantly when he was not being shut away in the tiny space of the cupboard, his pudgy eyes examining the boy wherever he went.

Harry grit his teeth harshly, and strained to maintain his composure. The Dursleys and he sat around their large dining table conversation strained between the three adults seated. Harry remembered this dinner from his first life as well, although without the leering glances from his uncle.

The woman beside Petunia spoke concisely about the two boys, as she was in fact Harry and Dudley's teacher from Primary. She had expressed concern about Harry's living situation and had wcome for an unannounced home visit. The Dursley's were thoroughly unimpressed, and Harry knew both from experience and from disgust that from this point forward things were drastically diverging from what they had been.

He no longer had patience for _filth._

Petunia smiled tightly as Ms. Fitch left Privet Drive number four. The woman had come snooping about worried about the nasty brat of a boy not speaking, as if it were her family's fault that they had a freak in it! It had taken perhaps all of dinner and a couple tense minutes to explain why the boy didn't speak. That they believed it was caused by his parents brutal murder, and that they simply didn't have the heart to force him to talk if he didn't want to.

The woman lapped it up and left feeling contented that her work as a teacher had taken care of.

Her tight smile falling from her face, Petunia rolled her shoulders stretching the tension out of them. Dinner had been an event and she was quite glad the woman had left. Initially, Petunia had thought Ms. Fitch had come to speak about Dudley's scores on his tests or his behavior in the classroom, all of which she had prepared excuses for, mind you. But, for some unforeseeable reason, all the woman seemed to want to talk about was Potter. It was Mr. Potter this, Harry Potter that, and Petunia had nearly found herself grinding her teeth to nubs as she had to listen to the woman talk about Lily's brat.

Thinking of the boy, Petunia's head swung as if on a swivel. It took a few moments of searching until she locked eyes on the boy. He was standing in the corner of the living room, his dark green eyes boring holes into her.

Petunia froze. Her mouth was wide, as she had been intending to scream at him to get back into his cupboard, but her eyes perhaps were even wider. She couldn't move.

"Don't bother trying to speak, Petunia. Afterall, I have to save you for last since the blood wards are tied directly to you. Besides, the more you struggle, the more magic I have to use and the more likely I am to screw something up and have to gut you first." Harry grinned cockily up at his aunt, bracing his back against the cream colored hallway wall.

"You know, I honestly was trying quite hard to keep everything the same. I don't think I'm going to mind giving up the advantage as much as I thought I would though. You see, I needed you Petunia," Harry's eyes firmly met his aunts as he stepped closer to her." Had you been kind to me, perhaps I would have need of you yet, but it seems as if it was simply not fated to be."

Petunia whimpered, tears running down her cheeks silently as she fought hard against the immobility. She couldn't speak, yet fear of the infernal demon child they had had dumped onto them still sank deeply into her stomach.

Harry's eyes flashed dangerously as he lifted one finger to his lips before he continued,"We have a lot to discuss, aunt, but for now you will have to be plenty quiet for me. I intend to have some fun, and if you spoil it for me… well, just having me gut you would seem kind. Anyway, I won't be the only one having fun! You can watch."

Harry rested one hand on Petunia's arm, the other hanging loosely at his side clutching the kitchen knife, and marched her slowly into the living room where Vernon now sat watching television and shoveling popcorn into his mouth. He didn't notice Harry approaching the couch until Harry flung a wandless reducto at the television shattering it loudly and exploding one of the sitting chairs. Vernon gaped in confusion at the wreckage.

"Hi, Uncle Vernon. It looks like we all get to have a bit of family time. Unfortunately, it seems as if Dudley is going to have to be left out. You see," Harry's eyes burned, "I don't do children."

The first thing Harry did was reinforce Petunia's bindings with a variation of the incarcerous spell. It wouldn't do at all for the woman to break free of the bindings through sheer willpower as some muggles managed at times. This variation was allowed him to manipulate her body to a degree and required a darker inflection of the will to be properly successful.

Not that he honestly expected Petunia to break free and throw herself at him in an attempt to save Vernon. Harry glanced at the woman curiously before he snorted. What the hell, not like anyone was around to stop him. He quickly pinned Vernon to the couch with an immobulus and once again turned to face Petunia Dursley.

Harry had very mixed feelings about Petunia. He hated her, make no doubt of that, but by all rights she didn't owe him anything. She had taken him in only when no other option was available, and had made several requests already for him to be taken away. And yet, she wasn't the paragon of evil he had always wanted her to be. Neither was Vernon. They were both muggles. People. Awful rotten ones at that, but still. He was about to punish her for that, about to torture her for having the bad fortune of possessing no latent magical power, and having married a pervert.

Harry steeled himself. He had done worse things. He had lived through doing worse things. His eyes met hers, and he felt something he had not for a long time. Pity. Remorse perhaps.

Harry swung around, his eyes alight with fury and his body shaking. It shouldn't matter, it shouldn't matter that Petunia was his mother's sister, or even that she had raised him from infancy, albeit unwillingly. It shouldn't mean anything to him that killing her would leave Dudley alone and without a mother. But it did for some reason. Something inane and meaningless made him hesitate and that made Harry so furious that he nearly screamed. He hadn't felt like this in a long time, not since the first raids he went on where Harry still had the foolish hope that muggles and wizards could get along. Where he trusted that people had morals and decency and that everyone had the innate ability to be good.

Harry snorted. What a crock of shit.

Harry turned away from Petunia again, and faced his frozen uncle slouching across the couch. He felt no such emotion when he thought about torturing the man. Neither did he feel the pressing need, the unmanageable anger he had come to expect since he had rejoined the Dursley's.

'But that doesn't mean I won't enjoy this.' Harry thought,'In fact, I may enjoy it more than if I was raging. This way, I can savor his death.' He peered back at Petunia from the corner of his eye. "Perhaps this will be a lesson for the both of us, Petunia."

* * *

TortureSceneTortureScene

His grip reaffirmed on the handle of his knife and his mind silent of his previous concerns, Harry approached his uncle. Harry had originally planned to simply kill both of them and be done with it, but now an idea had come to him. A punishment perhaps worse than simply killing them both.

Harry raised his hand and summoned the remains he had stored under his bed. There were quite a few bits of humans tucked inside the plastic tub, alongside a healthy amount of graveyard soil and a vial of his own blood. He had been collecting since the start of primary, when Harry had first killed Mr. Thatcher and established that he possessed sufficient magical power to take on a single adult muggle.

After all, Harry had recognized his talent for necromancy decades prior. It was an obvious fit, and with the resurrection stone and the massive influx of bodies he had had plenty of chances to practice.

Harry open the sealed tub and wrinkled his nose slightly at the wafting smell of soil. While the stasis charms on the box prevented the body parts from decaying, it didn't keep the smell from oozing into everything it touched.

Readying his knife, Harry decided to start with the individual pieces he knew he could remove without using magic. There was always something more personal about removing an organ or extremity that pleased the dark magic and made Harry's gut tighten in pleasure. Recognizing this, he started at his Uncle's massive feet running the knife along individual toes softly. And then harder.

They came off easily, as Vernon was still quite restrained and incapable of protesting in any form or fashion. After that, Harry moved away from the man's feet, partially due to the stench and partially due to the blood gushing out of the stumps. He moved onto the man's fingers, snapping the bones first and then cutting away at skin and sinew until it fell away.

He continued on through the list of body parts easy enough for a child his age to remove from an adult's body: nose, ears, teeth, and tongue- although that one had required a cauterizing charm lest the man bleed to death before Harry was well and truly finished. When he proceeded to open the man's trousers for that all important external organ, Harry heard Vernon's first whimper, something that was finally able to escape the boundaries of the immobulus.

And then Harry realized why. Despite the fact that Harry was literally cutting the man to pieces, removing sections of his body and depositing them into a container with other pieces just like it, the second Harry had grabbed for Vernon's penis, Harry could feel it. Hard. Engorged with blood. Erect.

"You disgusting pig." Harry threw down his knife as he jumped to his feet in revulsion "Do you see what you married Petunia! I knew we were both going to learn something from this, but this definitely wasn't what I was expecting! You're not even worth the effort it would take to finish this." Hard eyes fell against Vernon Dursley. Harry tossed a diffindo at the man's bared throat and was done with the man.

Harry wasn't just done with Vernon, he was done with the Dursley's and regretted ever coming to this awful place. He regretted setting foot in the door, regretted staying until he was this old, regretted allowing himself to feel anything at all for Petunia. And so he turned to her and whispered the only word that could fix what he had somehow broken.

"Obliviate."

EndOfTortureEndOfTorture

* * *

Harry erased every fragment of his existence and of Vernon and his bloody murder. He even went as far as to force Petunia's mind to ignore every sign of Vernon's rotting corpse. He also implanted a suggestion deep into Petunia's mind that moving out of such a large house in the next couple of weeks would definitely be a positive thing to , he trundled upstairs and wiped Dudley's mind as well. They wouldn't remember that Harry Potter ever existed, much less that he had murdered Vernon Dursley.

Gathering all of his things, Harry was forced once again to reexamine his meager belongings. There wasn't much, and with much of it stored safely under shrinking and preservation charms, there was even less. The largest and most personal thing, in fact, was his tub of necromantic parts. Harry figured that that was just depressing.

Harry refused to go to Gringotts, at least until he had a reasonable supply of polyjuice and a suitable amount of galleons that were not listed under his name. He wasn't stupid. Harry knew that the goblins likelihood of actually helping him for his own benefit was a chance in a million. They would protect his money and keep it safe as long as it suited their means. Trying to access it as a child, one with no suitable guardian and the smell of necromancy around him was akin to begging them to try to take advantage of him. Or perhaps begging to be cursed by one of the light wizards who would be able to sense the magic on him, and that definitely was his own fault.

He hadn't bothered with casting the high level concealment charms necessary for him since his rebirth. He hadn't seen the need to mask the taint necromancy had left. Now those charm were necessary if he wanted to visit the wizarding world. He would have to hide the taint on his magic, and his magical reserves were not up to such advanced levels of magic.

" _What do you think, Clementine?"_ Harry asked his familiar, cursing his lack of forethought.

" _Of what, my master? Of the way you wasted your quarry? Or perhaps how you irrationally changed your plans based on one deviation."_ She hissed sweetly at him.

He glared in annoyance." _I was finished playing out a fantasy where everything maintained itself as it was last time. Petunia and Vernon were muggles and I didn't waste them. I got everything I wanted."_

" _Yes, certainly master, that's why you reacted in shock to the smell of his lust? You've told me the stories of the last war. There has been many worse things you have born witness to. Worse things you have done yourself. And unlike some of those things, you were already partial to this knowledge."_

" _What are you saying?"_

" _You overreacted. Pure and simple. We were to wait for the time to come to strike out at our foes, but if it is discovered by the wizarding world that you have killed your uncle-"_

" _They would quickly declare me the next dark lord and be done with it."_ Harry's eyes widened in shock. Silence interrupted their discussion as Harry finally considered the ramifications of his actions. He cursed his arrogance and quickly began muttering quietly to think of a solution to the mess he had caused. Then a large smile appeared on his face. " _You forget, as do I at times, that I am only five years old. What do you think of staging a kidnapping_?"

And abruptly, Harry shattered the wards.

The Dark Mark hung ominously over Privet Drive. It's reappearance and the subsequent disappearance of The-Boy -Who-Lived was to be the talk of the wizarding world for the next six years.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

 _ **"On the day of my birth, my death began walking towards me. He never faltered, although I did many times."**_ _ **Anonymous**_

Harry stared into the fireplace, his green eyes reflecting the flames. His feet were thrown over the side of the armchair, dangling as they swung slowly back and forth while he thought. They had been here for the last three days or so. He wasn't exactly certain how long and honestly, it probably didn't matter very much at all. There was a never ending stream of houses just like this one behind him and an equally daunting amount of them ahead.

He had just turned ten today. Harry had celebrated with the box cake he found in the cabinets and a long hot bath in the master bathroom. He had thrown confetti around the dining table and 'opened' imaginary presents since he didn't dare leave his wards until he had to. It was very lonely and had done nothing but depress him honestly.

So now he was sitting here, in front of the fire feeling more alone than he had ever been in his life, in either of his lives. The past five years had done some good though. For one, he had killed so many people that it had almost become boring. It probably wasn't the most sane reason for him to stop killing, and it definitely had thrown the muggle investigators for a loop. After all, serial killers didn't just stop killing. Harry almost felt a grin tugging at his cheeks.

He had also had plenty of time to hone necromancy even further than he had in his previous life. By the time he had been willing to resort to it before, the availability of fresh corpses, or even muggles to create those fresh bodies, had declined enough that it had been reasonably difficult to even create something as simple as an inferi. The fact that muggles had been so available to him had been a boon, and in the past five years he had steadily been decimating the homeless populations of London and Birmingham. He had had the ability to create anything he wanted as well as establish a direct connection to his soul plane.

Harry had learned how to follow the tendrils of his astral being decades ago, but the first time he attempted it during this life had been when he was six years old. Immediately after traversing his tether, Harry had known something was off. It had taken perhaps a week of slowing the transent from human sentience to astral being for him to see the vile thing latched to him.

A horcrux. Voldemort's horcrux.

Harry chuckled and swung his legs around, hopping up and walking to the liquor cabinet. He loved scotch, and apparently someone in this family had as well since a large bottle of single malt sat aside several wines. He grabbed glass and the bottle, padding softly to the kitchen for some ice. He poured it and took a tentative sniff, swiveling the single malt slowly before swallowing a delicious mouthful of the amber liquid. He couldn't have much, since his body was inevitably that of a ten year old, but god damnit he was officially ninety five today and he was going to treat himself.

A number of hours later, Harry stumbled drunkenly up to the master bedroom, nearly tripping on the stairs and then actually tripping over three mangled bodies that hadn't been there last he remembered. He appropriately bent over and vomited from the smell mingling with the alcohol and began cursing wildly.

He knew what it was, that blasted Nightmare had probably possessed the flesh golem and started pulling out corpses again. He teetered awkwardly to his feet and stared at the dead family for a moment before sighing. He would have to deal with Anzu, and the bodies, tomorrow morning. His head was swimming right now from all he had drunk and he did not have the energy to argue with a demented minor demon.

One Year Later

He had been so certain that they would never see Harry Potter again. The entire wizarding world had been plunged in years of mourning when the disastrous results of placing the boy who lived with his aunt came to light. From the scene the aurors stumbled onto to the perpetrators superbe skill at masking his magical signature Dumbledore believed, as almost everyone else had believed, that Harry Potter was dead. There was nothing else to believe, as the uncle was butchered, the aunt memory wiped, and the terrifying symbol of the dark lord ghosted above the house.

The most frustrating thing had been that no one knew anything at all. Severus had heard nothing from his contacts, no one came forward announcing their possession of the boy, and his body was never found. The facts though...

Albus had been so certain he was dead. That he would never have Minerva hand him the letter signed by the auto-address quill that always, always addressed letters, her lips pinched tightly together, her cheeks red, and her eyes wide with shock. Her voice and hands had quivered when she burst into his office with one sentence on her lips that changed everything.

"Harry Potter is alive."

Alive. The word reverberated through his skull, fractured his thoughts and forced him to grasp the proffered letter. He knew what it was on sight as he had sent out many of the letters when he was a Deputy Headmaster, but now he wondered in awe at the single letter in front of him.

It read: To Harry James Potter

1441 Rosenburg Street

London, England

They had an address. It was more than Albus had ever hoped for. His eyes rose to met Minerva's shining with a more pronounced twinkle than they had anytime in the last six years. "I believe," He began," we have a house visit in dire need of being conducted."

Minerva shot him a dirty glare her voice tinged with a slight twang from her Scottish brogue,"You would do well to remember that it is to be the both of us, as well as the other heads of houses that will go. I needn't have come to you at all Albus."

He opened his mouth to disagree, but promptly closed it once again after examining her ironclad will. Arguing was going to get him nowhere when Minerva acted like this, especially as he was still off balance from the news that Harry Potter was still alive. Sighing, he finally tried to compromise slightly. "Rather than all five of us, it would be preferable for Severus as well as the two of us-" at Minerva's shocked expression, Albus amended slightly appealing to her sense of empathy. "He has just as much reason to be there as we do, perhaps more considering his relationship with Lily. Five of us will terrify the boy, and we most certainly don't want to overwhelm him."

Minerva grimaced slightly shaking her head and contemplating the offer before deciding that it was a worthwhile compromise. "I will send Severus up then, and we will leave in," she paused casting tempus at the air beside her," an hour. You best be ready then, or else I will leave without the both of you. "

Apparating to the address on Harry's letter deposited them at a curious location, that being the sight of an enormous gray box-like building that Severus snorted at and called a storage building. That left all three parties of the group confused and almost unbearably disappointed, until Dumbledore attempted a short range locating charm and managed to find a trail of magic leading to one of the storage units.

Inside they found a small boy with green eyes staring watching a television. He turned towards them with a surprisingly easy expression. "What took you so long?" Harry asked petulantly." I have been waiting for weeks!."

Harry figured the clueless child was the best way to play Dumbledore. He made up a large tale about his Mahi dropping him off here weeks ago to wait for someone to pick him up. He told them he trusted his Mahi, the she had saved him from a bad place years ago. When they finally gave up verbally asking him where he had been all of these years, he could feel the fine tresses of Dumbledore's magic reaching for his mind.

Harry forced them away violently, and then took on the look of an affronted eleven year old relishing in the shocked expression on Dumbledore's face. "Mahi taught me that it's rude to read other people's thoughts! Do you want me trying to read yours?" Harry glared at the man.

Dumbledore composed himself quickly and made the excuse of simply wanting to make sure Harry had been well taken care of. Still, he was on the receiving end of one of Minerva's scowls.

Minerva turned from the headmaster to the young boy in front of her who looked so much like James. She pulled Severus forward and beamed brightly at the young boy. "So, Harry, have you ever heard of Hogwarts.

Harry was taken directly from the storage unit he had been renting to Hogwarts. He didn't have to take the train, and as there was simply no other place for him to go, it was determined that Hogwarts was the safest place. Harry didn't really mind going to school early, particularly as he had no classes and no responsibilities. He also made use of the opportunity to pick up the diadem from the room of requirement, and to visit the basilisk in the chambers to solicit venom.

The professors at Hogwarts did not seem to have much of an actual opinion on Harry. He kept to himself for the most part and did not openly antagonize anyone. In fact, the most surprising thing would have been Severus Snape's cool response to the boy after returning to the castle. Of course that had nothing to do with Harry needing basilisk venom. Absolutely nothing.

Before Harry knew it though, the day of the feast was upon him. He rationally knew that it meant the arrival of the other students, but seeing many of them once more was like a sharp punch to his stomach. They were so young. They were so alive.

He approached the group cautiously, peering out from the shadows and slinking quietly to the back of the group. He did not want to draw unwarranted attention and have to actually talk to some of the other children. Almost immediately though, as if pulled in by the fact he wanted to avoid people, a small curly brown hair girl leaned over him whispered, "Have you seen a toad? He's a greenish black color. Neville lost him on the train and wasn't able to find him before we got off."

"No, sorry," Harry said gritting his teeth. He hoped she would walk away quickly, since his stomach had decided to start doing acrobatics. He was not ready for this. He would never be ready for this.

"Oh," she paused,"I don't remember seeing you on the train. I'm Hermione Granger by the way. You are?"

"Harry." His eyes closed for a half beat longer than necessary as he fought to maintain his composure. Gods she even smelled the same.

She continued on oblivious to his reactions, "Pleased to meet you Harry. What house are you hoping for? I'm hoping for Gryffindor, I read all about the houses in Hogwarts: A History. Apparently, Dumbledore was in Gryffindor."

"Is that why you want to be in it then? Honestly, you seem more of a Ravenclaw to me. Probably more bookish than anything else. Especially since Granger isn't a pureblood family" He shot her a sidelong glance. "To answer your question, I would prefer Slytherin to Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff to Gryffindor. I would probably fit in best in Slytherin though, and since I really don't want to isolate myself from others who share the same interests that I do, I will probably end up in Slytherin."

"Oh." She bit her lip firmly. She opened her mouth minutely, then closed it again and quietly mixed back into the crowd.

Harry stood amongst the crowd for a few more moments before Professor McGonagall appeared, looking almost as strict as ever.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory and spend free time in your house common room. The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule-breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the House Cup, a great honour. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours." She then gave all of the students a tight smile and began directing them into the Great Hall.

The Great Hall changed something for Harry. He knew that he had been bored for a long time. Harry had slowed down a lot in the recent years, but he had killed hundreds of people because he was bored. He was by no means a nice person. Massacring muggles had taken the edge of the burning needling feeling of apathy that had built up in him in the previous years, but it had never made him feel like this.

It had been decades since he had felt like this.

Harry was hyper aware of every child around him, aware of Quirrel and Dumbledore, and their individual pawns against him. He felt every student's heart beating and the excitement speeding up their breathing. His own heartbeat was racing, and until he forced the feelings down behind his occlumency shields, he was breathing just as hard as the other children.

Then he managed to pull on a mask of confidence and bravado, and raised his eyes to Quirrell's. He grinned at the man, and tugged on the bond between them probably giving Voldemort a headache. He nearly laughed! This year was going to prove to be absolutely delicious.

Harry ignored the sorting for the most part, taking note only when an individual differed from their original placement, such as Hermione Granger going into Ravenclaw. Finally, Professor McGonagall called his name and the Great Hall fell dead silent. Harry could hear his own feet hitting against the stone floor as he walked with his back straight and his head held high. He clambered onto the proffered stool and held his breath as the raggedy hat was unceremoniously dropped onto his head.

For a moment, it was as if the hat had had taken a deep breath, and then the sorting hat began screaming as Harry's memories flowed into the hat's sentience. Only centuries of fine tuning its own magical essences was enough to slow the hats descent into the boy's mind, and it was so much more advanced than anything it had ever seen before. There was so much pain and agony that immediately washed over the hat that he was forced to withdraw. All the while, he was screaming out Slytherin, because the hat knew now what no one else did, and knew that Harry Potter would only ever find a place in Slytherin house.

The rest of the sorting had to be put off. It was a historical moment that Harry found quite entertaining , although he regretted harming the Sorting Hat. The poor thing had been near catatonic since his sorting, and had been unable to speak at all.

Dumbledore was not pleased with the results. The hat had multiple enchantments on it to prevent to from directly speaking about a person's inner mind, and those to make it impossible to control. Dumbledore had been certain though that he had found the correct combination of charms to send students to the proper houses.

Obviously, the charms had not been successful. So now, Dumbledore had no information to the state of Harry Potter's mind, had not been successful in convincing the boy into joining Gryffindor, and had to explain the reaction of the Sorting Hat to the rest of the faculty.

He groaned audibly.

The prefect had lead those newly sorted Slytherin's down into the dungeon to the corridor that held their common rooms. Though there were many students left to be sorted, it was decided that those not sorted already would sleep on the floor of the great hall while those who had been who become integrated with the rest of their houses.

Thusly, whispered discussions had run amok over the firstie side of Slytherin table about Professor Snape. Everyone knew he was their head of house, everyone knew he tended to favor his snakes tremendously, and everyone knew the rumours of his participation on the dark side of the war, but outside of that, no one knew much of anything about the man.

After being escorted into the Slytherin common room, Harry and his peers dispersed from the tighter formation and began looking around at the ornate fixtures available. The Slytherin common room was elegant to the extreme. Of course the first noticeable thing was the green and silver, but several things stood out at Harry. The most important was Severus Snape, standing in the shadows observing the group of first years. No one else had noticed the man,as they were too busy taking in the sights of the magnificent common room.

"We are here today," Professor Snape began startling everyone as he emerged from the inky black shadows, "underneath the banner of a noble house, although one that has experienced loss and pain. We are here today learning to do better than our predecessors. To seek knowledge and use it for our own ambitions, whatever they might be. Though that is not all we are, and we, Slytherin's are more than simply an 'enemy'.

The trademark of our house is both cunning and ambition, both items that must be restrained by our intellect as well as our resources. Without that restraint, we are no better than Gryffindors, rushing blindly into any situation.

We are here today to learn to escape from prejudice, so that time might heal the wounds of the last wars," Here Snape's eyes began scanning face, until his dark brown eyes found Harry Potter's." we have assumed the burden of those attempting to become great, and our reputation precedes us as such. Keep in mind that all houses have produced their own Dark Lords, their own war mongers, and their own criminals. Also recall that Slytherin house has generated the overwhelming majority of solicitors, medi-wizards, curse-breaker, and leading officials than any other in the last twenty years. We are more than a mass face of Death Eater Campaigners." The first years were released to the prefects control then, and promptly separated into groups of boys and girls. The girls went to the right while the boys went to the left to prepare for bed.

The individual dorms were very different from what Harry had experienced in Gryffindor tower. While everyone roomed in a single room, here three individuals shared a suite that was connected to two other suites via a hallway. Each collection of three suites had access to a shower and bathroom. Harry figured that was one of the reasons that Slytherins always seemed more put together than the Gryffindors. More bathrooms were always a good thing.

Now the only problem was the stupid blond prat that he happened to be rooming was like fate itself had decided to shat on him. He grimaced. Alright, it wasn't like the boy was unbearable. He hadn't done anything particularly wrong and he hadn't even tried to be slightly nosy, although for how long that would hold out Harry was not certain.

For now, he simply ignored Malfoy and Nott, who happened to be his other roommate, and busied himself with pulling out all the brand new items that Dumbledore had bought after he had been secreted away to the school.

The first thing he set up was Clementine's tank which rested on the nightstand by his bed. Clementine had actually spent most of the last few weeks since arriving at Hogwarts on his wrist. She claimed that she didn't want to get lost, and while Harry figured that to be true, he also thought she was a little homesick.

He knew that Clementine was nearing the age where she was wanting to reproduce. If not for adopting him as a 'snakelet' she probably would have had several clutches by now. It was depressing her slightly, and although Harry wasn't quite sure she would appreciate the effort, he was resolute in finding her a suitable mate. Hence the need for the tank, because although she could pretend to be a fairly convincing bracelet, he didn't think he particularly wanted, or needed another one.

Still, for posterity's sake, he scratched the small garden snake's head until she woke up and slipped her into her tank, where she hissed in displeasure at the wood shavings, and then exclaimed happily upon finding a large heated rock in the center of the tank.

The next things he set out went on the desk provided by the school. That encompassed his textbooks as well as his stationery set. He then began placing his clothes in the wardrobe also provided by the school. Finally, he pulled a large pouch out of his shirt and reached inside. After digging around for a moment, Harry finally found the journal. Well, they weren't actually journal's but that was what the leather bound books had been sold to be. He used them for writing. Most of what he wrote was fiction, or it wasn't very good, but as Harry had had plenty of free time on his hands in recent years he had been getting better with every passing attempt.

After charming them to be attracted to a radius around his desk, Harry spelled them with obscurative charms and flopped down on his bed exceedingly tired from unloading everything.

Seeing that Harry was finally finished, Draco finally made his move. Approaching the other boy smugly, Draco held out his hand, "I'm Draco Malfoy. Over there is Theodore Nott. You can call him Theo. Everyone does.."

Harry contemplated this for a moment,pushing himself up from his stomach, sizing the other boy up. Harry knew kowtowing to Draco wasn't likely to get him much of anywhere, but because of the boy's father, Harry didn't want to actively piss him off. The problem was one of extremes because Draco had always moved in extremes, often polarizing problems that couldn't be solved easily. Eventually, Harry offered up an equally smug smile proffering a," Harry Potter, but you knew that already didn't you."

"I see you have a snake. Is she magical?" Nott asked from behind Harry, he had his hands and nose pressed up against Clementine's tank."

"No, she's just a garden snake I met several years ago. I wouldn't try to touch her though. She's very testy when it comes to being handled." Harry replied easily. "Her name is Clementine, and she is about seven or eight years old. I'm going to be breeding her soon since that generally calms down snakes."

"Theo." Draco shot the other boy a dirty glare. Harry nearly laughed at the petulant expression on the other boys face. They were almost fighting over him as if he were a shiny new toy.

"So,"Draco said," What did you do to the sorting hat?"

"Ah, I wondered how long it would take for people to start asking. I didn't really do much of anything. All I did was show him exactly what he wished to know."

"Show him?" Theo chimed in.

"Yes, the hat looks inside your mind to sort you, and views a smattering of your memories in order to sort you. He then empathizes with the suffering you've endured and rationalizes the actions that you have taken. Of course, the hat also sorts based on desire and the will of the individual. I just overwhelmed his empathy rather than allow him to force his way into my mind. Afterall, there is at least one individual on the staff that I would rather not allow to know my innermost thoughts. Of course, there was another reason behind my actions. The hat was spelled." Harry smirked.

"Anyways, I have a proposition for you both. I want a guarantee that I will be protected from exploitation while in this room. I have this contract," Harry said now serious, pulling the contract from the pouch around his neck. "It will protect the two of you the same way it will protect me. Although, I still expect the two of you to actually read the contract."

The two boys took the document in surprise. Reading the contracts, large smile appeared on both of their faces. Whatever they were expecting, Harry Potter was nothing like they had thought he would be.

Perhaps he actually belonged in Slytherin.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

"Life asked death, 'Why do people love me but hate you?' Death responded, 'Because you are a beautiful lie and I am a painful truth." - Anonymous

Harry took little notice of the outcome of the sorting. He honestly had never paid much attention to who had been sorted where at any point during his Hogwarts years, and it had simply been too long for him to remember every face.

Despite that, Harry undeniably felt the echoes of his past. Slytherin house tended to share a large number of classes with Gryffindor, and while the distinct lack of Hermione was quite strange the interactions between Weasley and Finnegan were similar enough to make his chest hurt. That was supposed to have been him. That had been him.

An interesting exception on the rather bleak future offered by Hogwarts was Severus Snape.

After the battle of Hogwarts, Harry had alway held a massive amount of respect for the Potion Master, but he had never been one to get sentimental for the man. Although everyone had believed it had been his decision to name Albus after the dour potions master, it had in fact been Ginny's decision. Ginny had never directly confessed what had happened in her sixth year, what exactly Severus had protected many of the students from, but Harry had eventually pieced together idea of what had occurred. Thus, Harry had not minded, nor had he protested as he had directly named James and later on would name Lily.

Still, Harry felt a bit odd going to his first Potions class, perhaps even odder than he had after Minerva's Transfiguration class. He had sat through that entire experience with his back ramrod straight and his teeth clenched tightly. Seeing Minerva hurt as much as anything else did, leaving a dull ache inside him as well as the intense desire to curse something. Her death had hit him hard, perhaps equally as hard as Severus's. Both of them had been fortunate enough to die before the fighting broke out though.

Harry found Severus Snapes's potions class to be quite odd. He had arrived on time, perhaps even slightly early, and settled into the frontmost table alone. He busied himself setting out his books and writing utensils, heading his notes and scrawling his name on the paper. Before he had finished the other students had begun drifting into the classroom and settling into predictable patterns divided by house. Some of the children were chatting and laughing amongst themselves, but as more individuals accumulated into the room a very distinct tension was building.

Harry had never noticed such a thing in his first life, as he had been so caught up in the _magic_. It was a subtle darkening of the air, the way every student shushed and suddenly glares were being fired across clearly defined lines of war. He was not sitting in a classroom any longer. He was in a warzone and schoolchildren were the only combatants.

An abrupt bang brought him out of his reverie, and Severus Snape burst into the room. Harry was shocked almost beyond belief. He had forgotten how young the potions master had been- was. Snape strode into the front of the classroom and stood towering over the sitting students, before glancing down at his roll book and calling out names. He eyed each of them individually, as if assessing their worth, his eyes hovering over ties as well as faces. His eyes froze on Harry's own and a sneer came to his face.

"Ah, yes," he said softly, "Harry Potter. Our new—celebrity."

Several snorts and quiet chuckles could be heard coming from the Gryffindor side of the room. Harry knew most of them to be coming from Ronald Weasley, although he was unable to identify the others without turning around. It did not matter, and his face remained stone cold and glued to the eyes of the man in front to him. Snape finished going through his roll easily enough and looked up at the class.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making," he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word. Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death—if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

"Potter!" snapped Snape suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Harry's expression remained unreadable, but inside he cackled madly. This turn of event was undeniably delicious. "The draught of the living death sir."

Snape's eyes flashed darkly and he fired off, "Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

"Well, while I would try the ingredient cabinet behind you _sir_ , I would be hard pressed to not find one inside a goat's stomach." Harry could not resist adding the emphasis on sir. The answering glare was worth being cheeky.

"Perhaps Ravenclaw would have been a better suit, Potter. What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

"Why _sir_ are you perhaps confused? There is no difference in those plants. They are also called aconite, although how you could confuse them is beyond me _sir."_ Harry grinned and began picking loosely at his nails.

Snape scowled, his mouth tightening visibly. "Detention, Potter, for your cheek. My office at eight tonight."

"Looking forward to it."

Harry left the Slytherin dormitories at a quarter to eight to walk the short way to Snape's office. The walk would have been uneventful, except for the young red headed boy following him. Harry rolled his eyes. If Ronald Weasley wanted to waste his time following him around Harry was not going to stop him.

Harry supposed that the detention was peculiar, at least for Harry. Unlike any detention Harry had had with Severus in his first life, the man simply assigned him a small number of lines. Snape sat at his desk and Harry used the spare in the corner to write them. In the past Harry had always cleaned caldrons in the adjacent workroom, and it was a bit odd to be sitting and calmly working with Snape in the same room.

About thirty minutes into the detention, Harry began to appreciate the old detentions. Snape would not stop staring at him, his glare boring into his skull. He felt as though the man was attempting to drill a hole through his head with his eyes.

Harry tried to ignore it as best as he could, but the tension in the room began building between the two. Finally, Harry looked to the man his eyes narrowed several minutes later.

"Do you need something, Snape?" Harry said, laying his quill down.

"Professor Snape, Potter." The man intoned automatically, "and I have a question for you, as well as a requirement. First, while the Headmaster believes it is adequate for you to wander about carelessly, I require more restraint on the part of my snakes. I expect you to avoid being caught for any mischief you might get up to. Furthermore, I require information on the woman that you claim raised you. Either an address or some means of contacting her for those times where you find your way into trouble."

"My Mahi no longer needs me, _Professor_ Snape. Her duty was to care for me until I could come to Hogwarts. I have no way to contact her." Technically, Harry was not lying. While Mahi was still bound to him, as was Anzu, they no longer needed to actively care for him or have a direct access to his magic, and technically, it had been Mahi's job to care for him. Technically, he wasn't lying.

"You are aware then that the ministry will seek to place you with another family. At some point, Petunia may be reconsidered, since she is your blood relation, but there is another family that has a claim on you."

"The Malfoy family."

"Yes, Narcissa is something like your second cousin through your maternal grandmother. If, and only if, you wish to pursue that contact, I can help get you in contact with her." Snape stood up before swallowing the distance between the two of them placing his hand on Harry's desk.

"I will be quite frank with you, Mr. Potter. I do not like you. I never liked your father, and I will not take kindly to your disrespect. Outside of class, I will treat you as if you do not exist, and inside I will verbally assault you. It is expected. If you must ask why, you do not deserve to know the answer. However, your grade will be dependant on your efforts as a student, and if you require assistance as a slytherin, either due to discrimination or whatnot, I will be available. Do not waste my time."

"Of course, sir. Thank you for informing me of your intentions. I had figured that your goodwill on account of my gift had simply expired."

"Gift, Mr. Potter?"

"If you have to ask sir, you do not deserve an answer." Harry's face was impassive as he stood up, sliding the lines across the desk and leaving .

Inevitably though, despite any fixations or minor amusements, his first two weeks at Hogwarts were quite boring. His homework was simple, the castle was quiet, and for absolutely no reason, Harry had developed a distinctive facial twitch. He had not considered the possibility of his growing addiction to the darkness he performed in his previous years, but, as the days went on, the absence of his daily rituals and his previous closeness to necromantic magics became clearer. His hands shook, his eyes went bloodshot, and his insomnia flared up again. Furthermore, when he did sleep it was to nightmares and screams and blood. Visuals of the war he had long since banished flooded his memories and Harry felt the pressures of surviving like never before.

That was why on the third week, he approached the two other boys sharing his room and proposed that they vacate the room for the evening. Nott accepted with ease, having decided early on that he did not much care about the boy who lived. Draco on the other hand had argued fiercely, and had almost succeeded in convincing Harry to allow him to stay in the dorm rooms before Harry, frustrated with the younger boy, had simple infiltrated his mind and implanted the order for Draco to avoid the dorm room for several hours.

Harry was irked enough with the boy that he left a terrible headache behind as well, without feeling the slightest smidgen of guilt. After all he could only endure so much nagging.

Originally, Harry had considered using either the Chamber of Secrets or the Room of Requirement rather than his own dorm room. After all, the dorm room would require extensive amounts of warding to prevent the magic from leaking out and either of his dorm mates could become suspicious of what he was doing. That meant it would be several days more that he would have to go without if he used his dorm. Unfortunately, Harry had been forced to recall the fact that there happened to be a massive basilisk living in the Chamber, and even worse, the Room of Requirement refused to let him in.

He had actually tried to go into the room once more after the incident with fiendfyre in his first life. The room had not opened then and he, Ron, and Hermione had simply assumed that the room had simply been damaged beyond what magic could repair. That was not the case.

The Room of Requirement refused to let him enter.

Harry had actually run into the same problem when initially trying to collect Ravenclaws diadem from the room. At the time, he had thought that perhaps the room existed outside of time, that perhaps the room had been destroyed completely by the fiendfyer. Eventually though, Harry had enough of trying to force his way into the room. It obviously didn't want him to enter, but he had to get his hands on the horcrux Voldemort had left inside.

After a quick word to the house elves convinced Harry that the room was not broken, and that he simply could not access it, a plan began to form.

The solution would have been simple if not for the wards surrounding Hogwarts. An imperio on one of the weaker willed teachers would allow Harry access to the contents of the room, if not actual passage. The wards however prevented such an easy method. Imperious was a dark spell, one that would definitely register on the wards and probably trigger some form of alarm.

Fortunately, Harry had a solution, albeit a risky one. There were of course other methods of controlling people. Potions, other dark curses, complex forms of the mind arts. What Harry decided on was a neutral curse incanted as 'sua totus mens', the spell would allow suggestions to the subconscious, but was heavily influenced by the cursed.

Harry had the perfect subject in mind.

Trelawny probably had no idea she was being manipulated as she teetered down to hide sherry bottles again. She didn't generally hide them this early in the year but she supposed that there was no reason not to. Storing them away was the easy part, but as she often did, she found herself going through the copious amounts of junk stored in the room. And if she never remembered this particular occurrence, why should it matter?

That was why Harry found himself on his dormitory floor raising wards so powerful he was left almost light headed. As Harry began the ward, he invoked each rune calling it's name. Harry took a deep breath as he felt the wards slide into being, testing the runic magic within the barriers. Uruz stood on the wall behind Draco's bed, Kenaz behind his own, Eihwaz at Theo's. Each of these runes existed within Harry's magic, but the most important for this ward was Algiz. Each required an invocation in blood magic in order to seal the ward to the room. Otherwise Harry ran a high chance of binding a merkstave rune to his dormitory, something he was unwilling to have happen. So Harry turned toward Theo's bed facing the south and ran the knife blade along his inner arm. The gash was not obscenely large, but it bled profusely. He turned sharply north, towards Draco's bed and ran the blood across Uruz. East came next, and with it Kenaz. Eihwaz followed suite. Harry then turned to the west and used the blood to draw Gebo on door, praying for balance and direction as well as offering up his willingness to sacrifice. He then turned abruptly to the north, facing Draco's bed and inscribed Algiz on the floor once again with his own blood.

Algiz was the rune of protection, and sealing it was vital for erecting a ward of any power, but when coupled with Gebo and a blood sacrifice, especially one willingly given, the magic would flow through the ward with little to no resistance. Magic would want to comply, possibly doubling or even tripling the protection it offered.

Technically speaking, all blood magic was highly illegal, but Harry found that both stupid and irreparably damaging. The closest thing he could compare it to was someone outlawing flour and then opening a bakery. Plenty of the wards and defenses used to protect the Ministry, Hogwarts, and any older influential Pureblood family were blood wards regardless of magical leanings. That included the Malfoy homes as well as the Longbottom Manor. It was because those wards were effective and because they were probably one of the most permanent forms of magic.

Harry snorted refocusing on the ley lines underneath the school with his mage sight. One of the perks of doing this in the dorm rooms was the direct connection he had with Hogwarts Ley Line. He could tie the ward circle to the ley line and have an almost permanent circle of undetectable protection focused on the dormitory.

The actual sealing took twenty minutes because although Harry's ward was tamed and willing to be guided, it quickly became apparent that the Ley Line was anything but. He felt as if it was similar to trying to tie a knot around a wet beach ball with a pair of shoelaces. The line fought fiercely bucking and twisting away from the seal. It tried to reverse his wards, flip his runic symbols, and destroy the protective circle around him, but Harry was exceedingly patient with the magic. He knew how difficult complex protection rituals were, and so he had planned for the magic to struggle. Afterall, a ley line would not want to be bound, even in part. Magic naturally did not want to stagnate, it wanted to flow and coil and _breathe._

Finally, a warm light began seeping out from the five points of power around the room. Harry felt his eyes light up as he stood to his feet and stretched. He had not felt this accomplished in ages. He was nicely exhausted and his protective wards would guard any necromancy he did from the school wards.

Suddenly, Harry felt the all encompassing urge to take advantage of the new ward. While the protection ritual had been fun and had gotten his blood going, it had not suppressed his addiction. After all, the ritual had only legally been dark arts, it was not physically tainting. No, Harry felt the burning desire to perform necromantic arts. He had gotten good at them, enjoyed them to a degree, but never had they controlled him as they attempted to on this night.

Harry pulled out his wand tried to cast cleaning charms at the blood on the walls. He was surprised to feel his magic responding sluggishly, albeit answering him. He did not attempt a healing charm at his arm though as he knew sacrificial magic required him to heal naturally. Harry contemplated attempting a summoning, just a small one in order to ease that craving inside of him but he knew it was not going to be possible. He doubted that he would be able to do much of anything tonight. He could feel the beginnings of magical exhaustion settling into his skin.

He could tell that the extended contact with the Ley Line had in fact drained him of a significant portion of his magic. He had barely risen from the floor to stumble towards his bed when the sheer weight of his exhaustion hit him. He ached physically from the amount of magic he had channeled, and almost cried out at the thought of forcing himself to do more. He still wanted it, but he knew that it would be at least a week before his magical reserves had reached a reasonable amount to perform any kind of necromancy.

Still, the desire remained. Harry lay there whimpering as every facet of his body ached in time to his magical core and he sulked at the unfairness of his magical limits. This was not the first time he had pushed his core to magical exhaustion, although it had been decades since the last occurrence. It was likely that it would not be the last time because Harry knew how powerful he could be. He could feel every ounce, every speck of his power from his previous life, It felt just close enough for him to use it, but it was as if a massive veil kept it from him. He could not touch it but he could feel it behind every spell he cast.

Harry felt the full weight of his exhaustion hit him again and again as he lay in the bed whimpering pathetically. Finally, Harry, exhausted from the intensive ritual, fell asleep.

Harry dreamed.

He dreamed of blood covering every room of Hogwarts, of every child decorating the hallways, of screaming. He dreamed of terror and smoke and crying. He dreamed of the Muggle-Wizard war. He could not move, could not breathe for the smoke was filling his lungs drowning him, pulling him under faster he could force the air into his lungs. And suddenly, he was back underneath the Hunters with a giant hole in his stomach staring into eyes that delighted in his pain.

Harry relived that torture again and again and again. They broke every bone in his body, and ripped every tendon from his bones. They cut him to pieces and laughed at his pain. His eyes were gouged out, his skin was branded, and his teeth were shattered. Harry was deemened and demolished and broken and every adjective in between. When they raped him, because of course they would not leave him even that small bit of dignity, they fucked him hard and dry and raw. There was nothing that he could do to stop them. No word that meant no, no word that meant stop, no word that allowed him to beg for mercy.

There was only pain, and then there was only death.

Harry awoke flailing wildly at the air. His mouth was dry, although he had obviously bit his lips to keep from screaming, as his mouth was full of copious amounts of blood. He surged up from the bed, nearly falling to the floor in his hurry to reach the bathroom before he regurgitated the remains of whatever had been in his stomach.

He reached the toilet in time, vomiting profusely until he was simply dry heaving, but it wasn't enough. Harry felt raw again, as though it had just happened tonight and not a solid decade ago. He felt used and degraded and worthless. He had tears running down his face mingling with the blood. Finally, he collapsed to the floor holding his knees to his chest as he tried to concentrate on his occlumency shields.

Harry had never drained his core to the point where it ripped away his occlumency shields before, but as he retreated inward he realised that that was exactly what he had done. He had expended too significant of a portion of his core on the protection wards and now had to consciously power his shields to keep them in place. Harry shuddered at realising the danger he had placed himself in by draining himself that much. The collapse of his occlumency was one thing, but reliving his darkest memories was another. Harry had long since established massive fixtures inside his mind to contain the horrible things he had done and suffered in the last war. He could not handle those things. He refused to deal with them and over the years they had become something akin to a mental tumor. Occlumency alone protected his already questionable sanity. It allowed him to function above those horrors, but it also proposed a great weakness. Underneath his functioning mind lurked a maelstrom of psychological agony. In order for Harry to function, his occlumency shields could not be disrupted.

It took Harry hours to reconstruct his shields. The fabric of his mind had nearly collapsed due to the sudden depreciation of his magic and that forced Harry to act. He reassembled his mind, building it up from the ground up. The first thing he did was restructure the way his magic flowed through him. He gave number one priority to his mental shields, powering them before anything else. Harry then changed the structure of his memories, allowing the positive ones to freely float through their classifications. He designed an indexing system for his memories tracking every thought before redividing his mind into the two bodies that had existed previously.

Harry awoke on the bathroom floor exhausted and visibly shaking from the experience. Something like this could never happen again.

Even with his shields restored, over the next few days Harry still had memories drifting past his eyes. Many faces were paired with horrific deaths, some sooner than others. He ignored it as best he could, forcing him mind to focus on the mind numbing effects of school and homework, although he ignored the teachers and classes as much as they would allow him.

While in theory, approaching Quirrell was relatively simple, Harry found that in practice getting the man alone was anything but. Quirrell actively avoided him. Only two days after his occlumency shields failed, Harry had already been diverted, avoided, or by some other means, Quirrell had managed to circumvent him. And thusly, Harry was very irritated.

Severus was not quite sure what to make of the Potter boy. He was polite to a point, and outside of that initial meeting, he had not expressed much inside his classes. The boy knew too much for a muggle raised child. Where would he have learned all the information he knew,after all, almost no one could not have taught him occlumency. It was just strange occurrences piling on top of strange occurrences. Where had the boy been all these years? What had he done to the sorting hat?

Severus hated puzzles and the Potter boy was turning out to be a puzzle inside of a puzzle wrapped inside of an alphabet he had never seen before. Potter was just as arrogant, just as snotty as his thrice damned father. It had not made any difference that the boy had sorted into Slytherin rather than Gryffindor. At least, he kept trying to convince himself of this at least.

More than that, Severus refused to take points from his own house, and he had reservations about giving detentions to his snakes outside of his purview. That alone made him want to tear his hair out, since it meant Severus would be forced to spend time with the Potter brat.

And it was not as if Dumbledore did not have some secret plan involving the boy. Severus could almost imagine some form of hairbrained scheme that the headmaster had concocted at the last possible moment involving the boy. No, Severus knew Albus was a crafty beast, capable of horrors just as anyone else was. Snape snorted. Slytherin or not, the brat was not his concern.

At least, not until Albus Dumbledore and his large twinkling blue eyes intruded on his well- frankly irritating- existence.

Albus ran a weathered hand across Fawkes head. Everything revolved around Harry Potter. Albus had always know that. His heart ached in remorse for everything the boy would have to accomplish. It did not matter that the boy was only a boy. It did not matter that his sorting had been unexpected.

Severus had to be kept under control of course, it would not do to lose control of him especially since Dumbledore felt that everything was slipping through his fingers. He loathed to make any moves before he had a more complete understanding of the situation, but as things had progressed he only felt that he had made more mistakes. Perhaps he should have forced the boy to explain where he had been, rather than accepting Harry's explanation of his Mahi saving him.

He had not felt this lost in years. Dumbledore hoped that he simply was offbeat from the boy's reappearance, but he was beginning to suspect that that was not the case. He just had to trust that destiny would pick up where he himself was failing.


End file.
